When the schedule of matches for the NPFL-Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation Pre-season Super Cup were postponed at the end of last month, it seemed as if the Nigerian factor of uncertainty and poor management was going to beset the budding competition. Having proposed the four-teamed competition as a pre-season Super Cup tournament packaged by Tingo Media, the organisers were hard at work to ensure the rescheduling did not derail the hard work that had gone into the making of the competition and they promised that the venue remained the Mobalaji Stadium, Onikan in Lagos and that the slight change of dates was only a minor inconvenience.
The Super Cup, which was initially to kick off on Thursday December 1 and end December 4 had been pushed back by five days and was going to hold from December 6 to 9. Davidson Owumi, the Head of Operations of the Nigeria Professional Football League, explained that rationale for the shift in a memo that read in part: “We regret to announce a slight shift in schedule for the NPFL-Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation pre-season Super Cup tournament due to unexpected logistics reasons that arose. However, the venue remains unchanged as the tournament now holds from December 6 to 9.”
The competition is a partnership with the Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation, which was founded by Dozy Mmobuosi in December 2021 with a noble mission of promoting the progress of Africa and creating an environment where Africans can thrive. Their core areas of focus are Healthcare, Education, Entrepreneurship, Information Technology development as well as building partnerships through sports and other philantropic activities. Because they consider equity to be of the utmost importance, they operate a rural-urban approach in the execution of all their projects while favouring long-term strategies that are both flexible and adaptive to new trends.
The Foundation concentrates most of their work in rural areas where a lot of assistance in the identified areas above is needed and because it enables them to assist high numbers of people in hardship or poverty. One way they aim to tackle these problems is by categorising them with the following key areas of Entrepreneurship, Technology Skills, Health Care, Education and Partnership Development, which involves building partnerships through sports and other philantropic activities such as the Pre-season Super Cup.
For this inaugural edition, which involved the traditional four clubs of the NPFL namely Shooting Stars Sports Club, Enugu Rangers, Enyimba and the newly promoted Bendel Insurance, the Dozy Mmobuosi Foundation was dangling an unprecedented N100m prize money for the competition. Individual prizes included N1m each for the Highest goal-scorer and the Most Valuable Player. With the definitive dates set, it was left for the clubs to prove their worth of the prize money and the players to show they had what it took to come out at the top.
At the Remo Stars Stadium in Ikenne, Ogun State, the preseason event got underway with Shooting Stars defeating Bendel Insurance 3-0 and Enyimba triumphing over the Rangers 1-0. Enyimba defeated Bendel Insurance 4-3 on day two, and 3SC and Rangers drew 1-1. On the third day of play, both clubs agreed to a scoreless draw, with Bendel Insurance shocking Rangers International 2-1 to finish with three points and a third-place finish. The Oluyole Warriors came in second place on the log with five points from three games, while the eight-time NPFL champions finished first with seven points.
It came down to the final day of action to determine which team will carry the day. A win for the Aba team will guarantee nine points devoid of the outcome between Bendel Insurance and Rangers in the other match of the day. Meanwhile, Chijioke Mbaoma, who notched a hat trick in the 4-3 win against Bendel Insurance to pick the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the tie was confident of their victory. He made this plainly obvious when he spoke with the media ahead of the final game. He said: “I joined Enyimba to score goals and it has only started from this tournament which I have the confidence we will win.”
The two teams have a history of exciting and tough encounters over the years. In some recent encounters, the Ibadan Warriors have found a way to silence their Aba rivals. For instance, they met on April 7, 2012 when the ancient town of Ibadan came alive that Saturday evening because their darling team, Shooting Stars conquered one of their staunchest rivals, Enyimba International, in the weekend’s star fixture of the Nigeria Premier League. In the tie, Mutiu Adegoke’s well taken freekick in the 87th minute of the fiercely contested match, played at the Lekan Salami Stadium in Ibadan, secured the vital win for the Oluyole Warriors. With that victory, 3SC were able to to amass 23 points in the league, a form and momentum that they were all too keen to sustain when the other half of the season got underway that 2012/2013 season.
In the most recent meeting in April this year, Enyimba suffered yet another setback, losing 2-0 to 3SC at the Lekan Salami Stadium on Monday, April 25. The People’s Elephant fell two goals down in the first half and could not find a way back afterwards. Some sluggish play at the back was causing grief for the visitors and it gave their opponents freedom to string beautiful patterns in dangerous zones from where the hosts grabbed the lead through Moses Omoduemuke tapping into the net as the quickest to react to Djeri Bassa’s block. Although Mbaoma, Emeka Obioma and Sadiq Abubakar had chances to get restore parity for the hosts, it was Shooting that seized their moment to double the lead – this time against the run of play – when Emmanuel Lucky benefitted from another defensive collapse to strike beyond a helpless Bassa.
Therefore, the stage appeared set for Enyimba to get one back as the most impressive side on the final day of the preseason but it was not to be, once more. In a tense final match, the Oluyole Warriors rallied back twice to prevail 3-2 to the dismay of the Aba side, who were in front twice but failed to defend those leads. Enyimba were the better team from the onset. They started the game off with an early goal in the sixth minute, cruising on autopilot. The goal came through a Fatai Abdullahi’s free kick that hit the wall and eluded goalkeeper Bamidele. But, Malomo Taofeek helped the Ibadan Warriors draw level in the 16th minute. At the half hour mark, Enyimba went ahead again. Goalkeeper Bamidele parried Mbaoma’s initial shot at goal, but Eze Ekwutoziam was on hand to find the net. Once again, 3SC was able to equalise when Kelly Kester curled the ball past goalie Noble in the 60th minute.
Anthony Okachi scored the third goal for 3SC in the 85th minute, shocking the Ibadan Warriors despite Enyimba’s pressure to score on every opportunity that came their way in the second half. As a result, Shooting Stars won the inaugural edition of the competition and took home a N100m prize money. As the side that lifted the trophy, Okachi, who delivered the killer blow, was chosen as the competition’s top player and went home with the N1m MVP award. When the season kicks off in January, in its abridged format, the 3SC will turn their attention once again to challenging for honours in the Nigeria Professional Football League. Whether that will be enough to get them the top prize, only time will tell.
About the Author
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
